Mail processing facilities often use mail processing machines, such as inserters, to print and insert mail into envelopes. The speed of these inserters is greatly influenced by the amount of material or number of pages per package. As the number of pages for a given package of mail increases, overall speed per package of an inserter decreases. This is because as a larger package is assembled, components upstream from an assembly module of the inserter slow down until assembly is complete. Hence, the assembly module limits the speed of the entire machine.
Moreover, mail processing facilities that print and process large amounts of mail obtain postal discounts if the mail is grouped by common destinations. Mail can either be grouped before or after printing. After-print grouping adds additional effort to the mail producing process. Alternatively, data grouping software organizes mail data into groups before it is ever printed and arranges the mail in a way that accomplishes maximum postal discounts. Of course, organizing the mail data into postal approved groups is not sufficient in and of itself to ensure maximum throughput and efficiency of a given mail processing machine. This is especially true when the associated print processing modules employed for printing of the mail or the configuration of the inserter varies. Variations of this nature that physically impact the mail—e.g. 3-up or higher printer or multiple inserter processing for mail production—must be properly accounted for when performing data grouping of the mail.
Hence, the inventors have recognized a need to increase the throughput of mail processing machines, accounting for variations in system configuration, while maintaining postal discounts by processing document data prior to document printing.